Steering

Dr. Ann Hill Beuf, director of the Cedar Crest College Women's Center, has been named to the steering committee of the newly formed National Association of Women's Centers. The group will hold its first convention on the campus of Trinity University in Texas May 29 through June 1. About 1,500 participants are expected to attend sessions on organization and management, programming and personal development. A resident of Allentown, Beuf became director of Cedar Crest's center in 1984, having served previously as coordinator of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Q: I am now retired, but during my Road Warrior days I took the LANTA bus from South Whitehall Township to downtown Allentown. (I also rode my bike for a real warrior experience, but that is for another day.) Since my retirement, LANTA has acquired hybrid buses. The stop-and-go of a bus route would seem to be an ideal application for hybrid technology, and I was wondering how these buses have been working out. — Chuck Ermert, South Whitehall Township A: LANTA officials are happy with their hybrid buses, Chuck, and they've been expanding the fleet steadily since the first batch of five Prius-like vehicles rolled off the California assembly line and into the agency's Allentown garage in 2010.

General Motors has talked a lot lately about how sorry it is for being slow to recall vehicles for potentially deadly defects and how concerned it is about customer safety. Yet until the Watchdog drove onto the scene, Jeniffer Montero couldn't get a loaner car from GM or her local GM dealer so she'd have a safe vehicle to drive while she waited for her car - which was under recall - to be fixed. She has experienced a problem with the power steering, which she says had failed several times, putting her at risk.

GREENWICH TOWNSHIP Two people from Roslyn, Montgomery County, escaped injury when part of the steering mechanism on the car they were driving in fell off and the vehicle veered off Route 78 in Greenwich Township on Saturday, police said. Neither Thomas Jefferson Jr., 43, nor Tracy Knowles, 33, was injured in the crash that took place about 9:30 p.m., police said. Jefferson was driving a car east on Route 78 in the left lane when the left front portion of the steering arm separated from the rest of the mechanism, police said.

Easton Mayor Salvatore J. Panto Jr. has been selected to serve on the Energy Environment and Natural Resources Policy Steering Committee of the National League of Cities. The committee is one of the league's five standing committees that develop policy positions on national issues involving municipal governments, according to a statement released by Panto's office. The committee will also be looking at long-term issues involving water supply, sludge disposal, hazardous waste and combined storm water and sanitary sewer lines.

First things first, and the first thing that needs to be done about supermarket shopping carts is an investigation into how they arrange for me to always get the cart that has one square wheel. Everybody else has nice carts that glide along the aisles as smoothly as a Rolls Royce. My carts always get spastic after I'm too far from the door to go back and get another, and I believe it's a conspiracy. But no one cares. All people care about is this proposal by Allentown Councilwoman Emma Tropiano, who wants to fine supermarkets if somebody else steals one of their shopping carts and then leaves it upside down in a gutter somewhere.

If the Sixers have been off the radar screen in recent weeks, it nonetheless appears they have been proceeding full speed ahead. If they seemed rudderless last season, let the record show they now have a steady hand at the wheel. That's the impression Jim O'Brien left when he was hired as coach last month, and the impression he left at a luncheon with reporters Tuesday afternoon -- that he is a confident, competent guy. That he has plotted a course for gentler waters, and fully intends to steer this team there.

A sports car is proof that it certainly is more fun in owning something you don't need than having to buy something you really need. But, then, luxury has always been more interesting than necessity. Today's test car, the Nissan 300ZX Turbo, like other sports cars, is an expression. And depending on where you are coming from, the expression may be slightly different. Whether you happen to be a yuppie, a driving enthusiast, a real sport or a mid-life crisis candidate, a 300ZX Turbo will surely make life more interesting.

An Emmaus man grabbed the steering wheel of the car his girlfriend was driving and swerved into oncoming traffic Tuesday, later threatening to kill her and her family, according to court records. Kenneth E. Moser III, 31, of the 100 block of West Berger Street, was acting strange after his girlfriend picked him up from work around 7 p.m. and argued with her as they drove down Main Street, court records say. In the 100 block, he grabbed the steering wheel and swerved into oncoming traffic but didn't hit anything, according to court records.

PHILADELPHIA — Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and state Treasurer Rob McCord pressed the attack against Tom Wolf during the final Democratic gubernatorial debate before next Tuesday's primary. Schwartz and McCord — in deep second and third place, respectively, in polls — ganged up on the front-running Wolf at Drexel University on Monday night. Katie McGinty, a former environmental protection secretary, stayed out of the fray. Unlike in previous debates, Wolf, a York County businessman and former state Revenue Department secretary, had trouble answering and deflecting accusations concerning his private family-owned business and his brief time as honorary campaign chairman for a former York mayor charged in 2001 — and later acquitted — of murder stemming from a 1969 race riot.

Wind Gap attorney Nick Sabatine steered clients to invest in a Slate Belt loan agency that eventually failed and cost its backers millions, court documents show. Sabatine, a former Northampton County councilman and one-time congressional candidate, received 1 percent of the return on his clients' investments in Blue Mountain Consumer Discount Co., which became the subject of a federal investigation and more than a dozen investor lawsuits. It was that money in addition to interest on his own investments in Blue Mountain, totaling more than $76,000 paid in cash over the course of four years, that Sabatine failed to report to the Internal Revenue Service on his tax returns, federal prosecutors say. Sabatine, 62, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single count of filing a false tax return in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl in Reading.

Q: My son, currently taking a driver's ed class in high school, tells me that recommendations have changed (because of air bags) for where to place hands on the steering wheel, and also how far back to adjust the seat (he maintains as far back as possible). What are the current recommendations, and are they backed up by research? — Nancy Watkins, Emmaus A: It's encouraging to hear that some young drivers continue to benefit from high school driver-education instruction, Nancy.

The men vying to run Lehigh County government disagreed Wednesday over taxes, zoos and nursing homes - even over whether disagreeing was a bad thing. But Republican Scott Ott and Democrat Tom Muller, candidates for Lehigh County executive, kept their focus on policy, not personalities, during a 30-minute debate taping at WFMZ-TV 69. The format fell well within Ott's wheelhouse. As an Internet pundit and satirist, Ott is articulate and verbally agile. By contrast, Muller's speaking style is less polished.

The elderly woman stepped into the elevator of a New York hotel and was joined by a large black man with a German shepherd. The woman's nervousness turned to terror when he suddenly demanded, "Lie down!" She dropped to the floor and offered him her purse, begging him not to hurt her. The embarrassed man helped her up and explained that he was talking to his dog, then introduced himself as baseball star Reggie Jackson. He ended up walking the woman to her door and insisted on taking her to dinner.

Christopher Confer is angry. On the mat in front of him, two boys roll and tangle limbs until their cheeks burn. Christopher wants to be one of them. The 10-year-old from Moore Township has been hanging around the Quakertown High School gym for the Middle Atlantic Wrestling Association tournament since 8 a.m., watching boys execute holds and escapes he knows he can do better. His own match just won't get here already. In the bleachers overhead, his mom, Chrissy Confer, watches him scowl and beat the mat with his fists.

An Upper Milford Township man has been cited by state police for allegedly allowing steer and goats to roam onto Route 29 from his wooded land south of Emmaus. Stavros S. Kiprislis, 50, who lives on Route 29, Chestnut Street, just north of Beck Road, has allowed the livestock to leave his property several times in recent months, state police at Fogelsville said Saturday. Police noted that this section of Route 29 is highly traveled, and the bovines and goats have not only walked onto the road, but also have crossed into neighbors' lots.